Kanestrom named one of “Great Contemporary Bowmakers of the 21st Century”

Ole Kanestrom has been included in this life-size publication featuring 28 of todays most talented bow makers.

A word on the project from Ole Kanestrom:

In 2006, when Andy invited me to participate in this project, it came with the condition that I make a gold mounted lens bow with the image of his beloved mascot Darling perched on a stack of books, emblazoned deep in the lens. Even though I love the look and feel of gold, the problem was that I no longer made gold-mounted bows.

The New York Times had come out with a series of four articles in 2005 called “The cost of Gold.” They exposed the global environmental and socioeconomic disasters of modern day gold mining. I calculated that each gold mounted bow I made also came with the additional price of nearly 10 tons of cyanide-laced earth, uncountable gallons of contaminated ground water, and contributed to the incalculable cost of ruined communities and lives. This was enough for me to swear off gold mounted bows. (The silver industry is not much better, but we have to pick our wars.)

There are other viable options, of course, if one wants to sidestep the environmental issues of modern day mining and still work in gold: Ecological gold, gold harvested without chemicals, and, of course, recycled gold. Both of these options are widely embraced by the bow- making community and answer in part the hideous industry that gold has become.

In this book I wanted to honor both our vision: Andy’s of his book, and also my stand on the gold industry. We had lengthy talks (if you know Andy, you know this to be true!) about my using the last of my gold scrap in this bow as kind of swan song, but I felt it had to be something more.

So, after further discussion, I chose instead to make a silver mounted bow, a second frog and button set available in gold, which used the very last of my scrap. This is also a nod to the long-standing tradition of having a reserve frog and button made for a special bow. So when viewers find the only silver mounted lens bow in this book, they will know a little more about why it is here.